In this county, we had to walk, eat, sleep and love in fear.

When we don't speak, said Edgar, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves.

I wanted to get out of our thimble of a town, where every stone had eyes.

I'm always telling myself I don't have many feelings. Even when something does affect me I'm only moderately moved. I almost never cry. It's not that I'm stronger than the ones with teary eyes, I'm weaker. They have courage. When all you are is skin and bones, feelings are a brave thing. I'm more of a coward. The difference is minimal though, I just use my strength not to cry. When I do allow myself a feeling, I take the part that hurts and bandage it up with a story that doesn't cry, that doesn't dwell on homesickness.

Some people speak and sing and walk and sit and sleep and silence their homesickness, for a long time, and to no avail. Some say that over time homesickness loses its specific content, that it starts to smolder and only then becomes all-consuming, because it’s no longer focused on a concrete home. I am one of the people who say that.

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand.

I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.